50 years earlier…
Huang crept toward his prey, resisting the urge for self-ridicule. As First Prime of Lord Yu, he would have sought greater enemies on the field of battle. The Jaffa armies of Sokar, Apophis, even Ra would have trembled as he led the Dragon Guards against them.
Instead, his life had been reduced to exile within the frozen wasteland of the Tau’ri’s southern pole. Worse, his head and heart warred over whether it was just to kill the creature before him. The odd black-and-white bird waddling before him walked more like an old man than a bird in search of flight. Its orange-lined black beak crooned piteously as if calling out in loss. To kill such a creature felt wrong.
But necessary. Hunger gnawed at Huang’s belly as he watched the bird cease its cries. It stopped walking, preening the dense white feathers on its chest. Two days had passed since losing his satchel. Two days with no food and little sleep. A blizzard had hit only hours after losing his gear, forcing him to find refuge in an ice cave. For hours he’d laid within the rippled blue ice, wrapped only in his cloaks. On occasion, his eyes would play tricks on him, casting golden-white tendrils of light across the cave’s floor. He would squeeze his eyes shut against the mirage, his mind rolling over the great failure that had led to his plight. Staving off self-pity, he strived to find hope, or at least the chance of it in the future.
Upon the storm’s end, he had ventured out again to follow the great glacial cliff along the frozen sea. He felt for all the world as if he stood alone on the Tau’ri’s planet. He was not fool enough to believe Lord Yu would send rescue. For all his master knew, he was dead. If Huang did not find true shelter from the cold soon, that would surely be his fate. Several of his toes had begun to blacken with festers swelling near the tips where his nails had worked loose.
But first, he must eat. Even if it meant killing the man-like bird to do so. Less than ten paces from what would become his next meal, Huang thumbed the staff weapon’s trigger. The firing head opened, releasing a short crackle of energy as it charged.
The bird’s head swung up. A single caw erupted and black eyes darted in Huang’s direction. Its oblong wings flapped though no flight occurred.
A single shot blasted off its head.
Using his staff weapon, Huang hobbled over to the dead bird. Blood oozed from its severed head. He pulled out his belt-knife and sliced the creature’s breast open, revealing a thick layer of fat. The pungent stench curdled in his nose, smelling more like fish than fowl.
Breathing only through his mouth to fight off the stink, he sliced down further, revealing tender red meat underneath. He carved away the fat, filleted the breasts and withdrew them from the carcass. Flipping the bird over, he took a half-step back and blasted its feathers with the staff weapon. Over the ensuing embers, he roasted the meat on his knife’s point.
He bit into the barely seared meat and immediately spat it out, overwhelmed by the rank taste. Shoving down the bile that threatened to rise, he forced himself to eat the entire thing.
As he consumed the putrid meal, disgust crossed his mind. A reflection of how purposeless his life had become.
Here sits the once-future First Prime of Lord Yu, relegated to eating whatever vile sustenance I can find.
A glimmer of golden light flashed to his far right. At first he believed it only a trick of his eyes, teary as they were from the smell. When the light flared again, he rose up from his meal and turned toward its source.
Nothing. The light had disappeared. In the far distance, many days’ walk from his position, smoke bellowed from a high mountain. With reluctance, he admitted to himself that the smoke did not come from the same location he’d seen days ago. The earlier storm must have forced him off-course.
Even so, where there was smoke, there would be Tau’ri. Huang heaved a heavy sigh. He knew not what he would do upon meeting them, but if Lord Yu cared so greatly for these people, Huang had to believe they would welcome his presence.
The golden-white light flashed again, emanating from beyond the next bend in the glacial cliff. Ignoring the pain in his feet, Huang ran until he reached a tattered red flag attached to a pole wedged into a stone cairn.
The light was still there, hovering a mere hand’s length above the wedged-together pile of rocks. Huang cautiously approached. The cairn was no more than a few paces wide though its top stones were higher than his head. Too small to be the burial place of any Tau’ri, he knew not what the cairn contained.
He picked up one of the rocks, its surface smooth. Weatherworn, he realized. Glancing up at the light, Huang noticed long white tendrils extending from its center.
“Thank you,” he said, though the very idea of speaking to a light felt foolish. “Are you a friend of the Tau’ri?”
The light ascended from the cairn, its tendrils folding in along its central column. Huang stumbled back in fear that he’d upset the strange being.
“Are you foe?” he dared asked.
The light flared bright gold, and then, disappeared.
Huang returned his attention to the cairn. Grabbing stone after stone, he pulled down one wall and then another. Several bundles nestled between the stones, covered by what appeared to be gray woolen blankets. They would help keep him warm on his journey. Lifting up a blanket, he discovered that it was fashioned as a pairs of pants. Relief washed through him. The added clothing would aid his climb up the mountain to the Tau’ri. He gathered up the woolen clothes.
A glint of metal beneath them caught his attention. Pulling back more of the woolen items, he found small, colorfully wrapped packages. Some shaped like blocks, covered in what seemed thin metal paper with strange letters printed on top. Others were cylindrical, bright red containers with black lids. More writing appeared on their sides as well. Pulling out the containers, he discovered even more packets. Of the items present, the largest pile was of long, thin bars, each swathed in more layers of the metal paper.
He unwrapped one, discovering inside a dark brown solid substance, squarely scored. Though the bar was very cold, the metal paper must have insulated it well enough to escape freezing. He broke off a piece. Sniffed it. A musky aroma with a sweet edge. He bit into it.
It was food!
In excitement, he ripped open more packages. There was hard bread, a fatty meat, and lumps of white crystals tasting very sweet.
Biting off another piece of the brown bar, he searched for the billowing smoke from the mountaintop. It was gone!
Fear gripped his stomach. Had the light destroyed the Tau’ri? Was that why it had encouraged him to pillage such a vital resource?
Huang swallowed hard, the Dragon Guard trainee within reasserting itself. Lord Yu must be warned. If the light was at war with the Tau’ri, only the great System Lord would know how to combat such a force.
Grabbing as much of the supplies as he could carry, Huang retreated to the cave in which he had taken refuge. There he donned the woolen clothes. Fed, warmed, and alert, he picked up his staff weapon and headed forth to retrace his steps to the Chappa’ai. He would find the dialing device, certain it must be buried somewhere within the cavern’s ice-covered floor. From there, he would travel to one of his master’s protected worlds and send work back to Lord Yu. In doing so, perhaps the Goa’uld would see the success in his endeavor, and not his failure.
As he strode past his earlier hunting place, snow began to fall.